A Few Small Candles

Little is known about those who openly refused to enter military service in World War II because of their convictions against killing. While many of those men accepted alternative civilian service, more than 6,000 were incarcerated with sentences ranging from a few months to five years. Some were tried, convicted, and reimprisoned for essentially the same offense—resisting induction into the armed forces—after their initial release.

In A Few Small Candles, ten men tell why they resisted, wha...